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Talk:Dark Realities
This is the talk page for Dark Realities. Leave your comments, thoughts, and opinions in the space below. Official NRC Review What can be said about Dark Realities that hasn't already been said before? , creator of Journeys of Darkness, of The Eternal Game, and of Legends of the Brigade have all joined forces to create a tale of epic proportions. I am proud to have written for this story, which I consider to be the quintessential CBW epic. So what is Dark Realities about? Well, the feared forces of Eostra Nihiltian, Millennium, and the Dark Lord have united to form the Dark Empire, a great army of darkness that seeks to hold the universe in its talons. However, a lone resistance force, comprised of the remnants of several different factions, still remains, and now it prepares to launch a final assault on the Empire. But meanwhile, behind the scenes, "a greater evil" is stirring that even the Empire cannot stop, and is preparing "to plague existence once again..." To begin with, the plot is excellent; full of the high action that makes BIONICLE epics stand apart, interspersed with darkly calm moments to cool down, Dark Realities takes readers on several different journeys across the planet of Spherus Magna. The story is propelled by the relentless adventure and constant twists in the tale, and the authors do better than ever at making each character stand out from the rest. Personally, I like how well Chicken Bond managed to portray my characters Nightwatcher and Ixtil; not only do their personalities stand out, not only are they clearly the same beings that we get to know in The Darkness Returns, but we get to see how they act and react in new situations, and that's always worth watching. It defines their characters more that plain description ever could. And, even better, the story has true heart. That's not to say that it's a happy or uplifting story; quite the contrary. No, the "heart" of the story is fear. Fear is what propels the story forward, gets the characters moving. There is hardly a character without fear of some sort—fear of failure, fear of injury, fear of death—and that moves me just as much as it does the plot. Of course, as with everything, there are a few drawbacks. The main one is that, due to the fact that this is longer and more complicated than the casual epic reader is used to, Dark Realities, like TEG, may be too difficult to read through for some. It's pretty hard to keep track of all the characters, and (again like TEG) it almost seems like a relief when a character gets killed off, so that there are fewer that one has to keep his mind on. But that's my own opinion. Overall: This is definitely one of the best epics I've ever read. If you have the time to read it, I recommend you do so as soon as possible. The writing isn't perfect, though—I don't believe any of us are professional authors—so I'm still going to save my A+ (perfect) rating for the day a professional comes here and writes for us. Until then, though, this is going to take the top spot on my list of highest-rated stories. Update Now that it's finished, I'm going to edit my review, and add a couple of cons that I found upon re-reading: First of all, like I said above, there are too many characters. There doesn't seem to be much character development going on at all, and it seems like very few have been fleshed out at all. The rest don't even so much have a motivation: they just go around doing what the plot tells them to without any insight as to why, other than "the Empire is evil" or "the Resistance is in our way", and sometimes not even that. Secondly, the story is not only convoluted (what with all the characters), but it seems to go out of the way to get constant action. For this, and other reasons, it's often repetitive; for an extreme example, see chapter 36, where three of its different parts end exactly the same way. Third, upon review, the story runs into a problem many others here face; often, it doesn't show, but rather tells. This not only adds more to the repetitiveness I mentioned above, but makes the story less interesting to read in general. Finally, as I've pointed out before, there are a couple of plotholes you should take care of (i.e., why doesn't everyone just use the teleportation gauntlets?) but since they're not important, they're not going to have any effect on the rating. I just thought I'd mention them. Updated grade: A-''' [[User:TheSlicer|'''Sli]][[User talk:TheSlicer|'cer']] [[w:c:custombionicle:User:TheSlicer/Nightwatcher's Review Club|'Out']] 02:42, November 11, 2010 (UTC) Wow. I, and probably Varkanax and J97, are completely overwhelmed by this positive feedback from a very tough review club. It is touching to see we have made a story that is considered legendary XD. And as for the grammar, I am aware there are a few missing words here, and a few misplaced sentences and phrases there, though I am currently reviewing all the chapters I have wrote (which they seem to crop in the most XP) and repair the damage. As for the difficulty to follow all the character's countless journeys, I can assure as DR reaches it's explosive conclusion, a LOT of characters are due to die, both on the sides of the Empire and the resistance, just so the stakes can be raised to full. But you are right, there is truly a darker evil lurking beyond the boundaries of the Empire's grip, and just as a little spoiler for DR's hopeful sequel, this evil is waiting to be awakened for the first time in 300,000 by the darkest archway of all. An archway which is lost. An archway which is old. An archway which is preparing... But enough on that, now. Because I, Varkanax, and J97 are very grateful to know that our tale has become something really worth reading. Regards, Sir Bond Has ARRIVED!!!!